If you are a regular reader of my blog, you couldn’t have missed all the plugs for my humor novel Death on Diagonal Lane, which was published by Hachette in 2022. Bear with me, guys. I'm proud of the little thing. That novel is the one bright spot in my otherwise unremarkable writing career. The one book I have managed to get “properly” published, that too by a major publisher, despite having written over twenty-two.
And yet… something still nags at the back of the head. The book may well have been published by Hachette, and it may well have featured prominently in their Anthology of Humorous Indian Writing that was published earlier this year, right alongside some of the greatest Indian humorists in the past century…
… but, all said and done, the book hasn’t set the Ganges on fire.
Everyone who reads the book loves it. They say it is one of the funniest books they have read. Trouble is, so few read it.
One of the reasons is, of course, that the odds are heavily stacked against new authors. It is rare that a new author, even if backed by a major publisher, can make any sort of splash.
The other, I think, is THAT title and THAT cover…
It looks and sounds like a boring, old-fashioned Agatha Christie type whodunit, when it is in fact a hugely funny comedy.
At the time, I was totally in love with my title. I thought it was brilliant. My editor at Hachette thought so too. Think about it: a story about a neighborhood populated with all sorts of eccentric, wacky characters, and how the death of one of them, and the subsequent police investigation, turns their sedate, middle-class lives upside-down. The title fits the plot to a T.
What I did NOT consider, and what my editor also did not tell me, was that to someone who knew nothing about the plot and the zany characters, it sounded like the title of a 1940s Miss Marple potboiler.
The title would still have worked, if the accompanying artwork had been something zany and off-kilter. The tension between the staid title and the bizarro artwork would have attracted eyeballs. I, in fact, came up with several cover mockups that attempted to do just this. I'll share these alternative covers in a future post. But the folk at Hachette were not convinced. They went ahead with their regular designer, who came up with the cover that you see above. I had serious misgivings about it. I thought it was just not appropriate for a comedy. But the editorial team at Hachette insisted it was elegant and aesthetic, and would work perfectly. Since they were the experts, I gave in.
I soon found out that I was right to have been doubtful. My book was released to a deafening silence. I saw it for myself, when I went to the Bangalore Literary Festival to push my book (see Only Murderers in the Building: Crime Fiction). Although people in the audience were intrigued when I presented my novel, and laughed at all the right places, and some even came up and talked to me later, a different scene was unfolding at the book display of the festival. I spent several hours over there. I could see people picking up books displayed all around mine, but no one even gave mine a glance. Their eyeballs did not even gravitate in the direction of my book. I do not blame them. In isolation, the book's cover may well be elegant and aesthetic, but surround it with ten other books, and it completely disappears into the background. The only job of a cover is to make people pick up the book. After that, it is up to the blurb and the opening lines to make them want to read further. But if no one even picks up the book, the blurb and the opener can't do their magic.
Now, so many years after the publication, I have thought of an alternative title that might have worked better:
Death of a Duffer
This plays on the fact that Mr. Reddy, the dead body in this novel, is referred to as “That Old Duffer” by his wife right through the novel (check out the excerpt further down, to see what I mean). This title is much more appropriate for a humor novel, I feel.
And I have made a new cover to go with the new title:
Here is the updated blurb, to go with the new title:
Old Mr. Reddy, the Duffer of Diagonal Lane, goes belly up. His wife, the scatter-brained celebrity chef Vani Reddy, has the hysterics. She attempts to chop the body into Julienne and dispose of it in the garbage can, on the sound reasoning that he was garbage anyway, even when alive. Neighborhood wise man Mr. Murthy takes control of the situation. He attempts to give Reddy a decent cremation. Neighborhood bungler Sunil Shetty is assigned the task of getting a Death Certificate. But he bungles even this simple job. Because of a spelling mistake in the application form, the affair escalates into a murder investigation. The police officer assigned to the case is Mr. Murthy’s old school chum, Sub-Inspector Ratty Gowda. A piece of good fortune? Not really. Ratty Gowda is an ambitious police officer, itching to get the ‘Sub’ off his title. He puts the gentle folk of Diagonal Lane through the proverbial wringer. It takes all of Mr. Murthy’s sagacity to head Ratty off from putting all of his friends and neighbors behind bars. But meddling too much in police affairs can sometimes backfire. It does not take Mr. Murthy long to recognize the veracity of that old adage: Policemen have no friends.
In this dark comedy on contemporary middle-class India, Pashupati Chatterji delivers a charming whodunit guaranteed to have you laughing all the way to the end.
I sent all this stuff to my editor at Hachette. She said she’ll “seriously consider” my proposal, "if" they ever decide to relaunch my book.
Oh well.
If you, kindly soul, decide to buy my book, and you like the new cover, I have made a dust jacket that you can wrap around the book:
Just DM me on Instagram at @diagonal.lane or Twitter @diagonallane, and I’ll send you a high-resolution PDF file of this dust jacket that you can print, along with printing and folding instructions.
- The Duffer is Dead!
- Is the Duffer Dead?
- Is Reddy Dead?
Buy It
You might find it in your favorite bookshop, if they have good taste.
Otherwise you will get it on Amazon India (eBook and Paperback):
On Amazon US (eBook, Paperback dispatched from India):
And on all the other Amazons. Just search for "Death on Diagonal Lane" on your regional Amazon.
Also on Google books (only the eBook):
https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Death_on_Diagonal_Lane
You can also buy it from an Indian bookseller, Midland Books, who will ship it anywhere in the world at a lower cost than Amazon (can't confirm this).
https://www.midlandbookshop.com/en/product/death-on-diagonal-lane
You can also find it on eBay, Abe Books, Flipkart, and a number of other places.
Second Excerpt:
(This excerpt is a few paragraphs down from the excerpt that I provided in my previous post on DODL)
Mr. Reddy was lying spread-eagled on this bed, one foot on the floor, the other in the air. This curious attitude was in itself not unusual: he had sprained all sorts of delicate body-parts in a misguided attempt to learn ballet at a ripe old age and of necessity took his forty winks in a set of thirty-three carefully choreographed positions. But he was still. He made no sound. That was unusual. He writhed in his sleep like a python and snored like the Deccan Express entering a tunnel. I could hear him right into my own apartment. We shared a bedroom wall.
The dim, unshaded 40 watts incandescent lamp glowed dully on Reddy’s bald pate. His veshti was askew, displaying maroon y-fronts covering the essentials between spindly thighs. His sweat-stained cotton mesh vest strained over a bird-like ribcage, ballooned with pride. A smile of ecstasy, as if in the thrall of a pirouette, puckered his nicotine colored lips, as did the blissfully shut eyelids. Clearly, he had been dreaming of dance at the point of departure. Except for the fact that his chest was not moving and no snores emerged from his button-like nose, he seemed extraordinarily alive.
I probed him to verify. Mrs. Reddy was right. Appearances were deceptive. He was deader than a cold storage brinjal.
‘How long has he been like this?’
‘A duffer? Oh, he’s been a duffer as long as I remember. I remember during our marriage ceremony, when the priest asked him to rotate left, he rotated right. When he was asked to sit down, he stood up. “Holy coconut chutney, they’re marrying me off to a duffer,” I remember saying to myself. I should have protested there and then. I didn’t. I took the whole thing as a joke. I thought it might be a whale of a laugh, being married to a weak-in-the-head chap. What can I say? I was a little girl. Wisdom comes late.’
‘I mean, how long has he been out cold?’
‘Oh, that? I have no idea. I just got in. I found him like this.’
‘Oh, you were out, were you?’
‘I had a midnight TV shoot. A panel discussion on Temple Roofing Techniques in Late Chalukya Period. They like to keep these boring science talks in the early hours, when nobody’s watching.’
‘I did not know you were an expert on Chalukya Temple Architecture.’
‘Neither did I. They were missing a panelist, so they asked me jump in. Nowadays, they call me for anything. To be fair, none of the other panelists seemed to know anything about Chalukya Temple Architecture either. There was this maths proffesor from IISc who kept talking about alien visitations. I do believe he was drunk.’
‘When did you see him last?’
‘Who? The maths professor?’
‘No, Mr. Reddy.’
‘9 PM. I gave him dinner, and then I hopped onto a taxi.’
‘Was he alright when you left?’
‘Other than being his usual dufferly self, he wasn’t any worse than he usually is.’
‘No stomach cramps? No breathing difficulties?’
‘He had two helpings of sambar.’
‘Ah, then he had stomach cramps.’
‘It was my celebrated Frangipani Sambar, renowned for its healing properties.’
‘In that case it must have been breathing difficulties.’
‘He was breathing just fine when I left.’
‘Come to think of it,’ I said, chewing on the lower lip. ‘I heard him snoring robustly until well after midnight. I drank a cup of warm milk, and managed to doze off after that. So, whatever happened to him, happened in the last couple of hours.’
‘Well, he’s dead now,’ said Mrs. Reddy, seemingly uninterested in postmortem. ‘The really important question is: Do we call the mortuary or garbage disposal? Who takes care dead duffers in this city?’
‘I believe the correct procedure is to call for an ambulance,’ I said, crinkling my forehead in thought. Although I have seen a great deal of life, I had not much experience of death. All of my friends, until now, had had the decency to pop off in my absence, leaving the nitty-gritty details to others less fortunately placed. Even in the case of my dear late wife, a platoon of her cousins and uncles had taken care of everything. I had been too distraught to lend a hand.
‘But he’s dead.’
‘It is not for us to say so. Qualified medical practitioners must certify that our good friend has indeed handed in his banana leaf.’
‘Who cares? I certainly don’t. Avoid all that unnecessary paperwork, I say. Cut him up into small bits and stuff him into the garbage bin. That should do it.’
‘I believe the building committee might have something to say about it. Not to mention the police.’
‘They’ll never come to know. Not if we do it real quick. I’ll sharpen the vegetable knife. You can do the hacking.’
‘I don’t in all honesty think I could...’
‘The question remains: do we use the organic bin or the toxic waste bin?’
‘You know, I really wouldn’t recommend...’
‘Not that it matters. The garbage man mixes them up anyway. Here – this one should do. I use it for scraping coconut.’
Mrs. Reddy handed me a rusty blade with a broken wooden handle. I saw that I would have to be firm. I had always known her to be somewhat batty, but the departure of her till death do us partner seemed to have parted her from her inner hinges. Left to herself, she would land herself in the hot pepper rasam. And me, with her.
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